The National - Sleep Well Beast (Sept. 8th, 2017) Anticipation Thread

they peaked on mr november and everything since has been indistinguishable slowness with a few highlights

i stand by this rockism

I like "turtleneck"!

the Obama associations have spoiled "Mr. November" and "Fake Empire" for me tbh

not feeling this album at all

what obama associations with those songs?

Fake Empire was used as intro music, if I recall correctly. I think it was playing before he went out for his Grant Park victory speech.

they made "Mr November" shirts w O's face on it iirc

awesome shirts thb

tbh*

Been sitting on a promo of this for ages but waiting for the right time to listen to it (in part b/c listening to a National album in the summer seems wrong). Trouble Will Find Me turned out to be a really important album for me; probably my favorite indie rock record of the last five years.

Should I just bite the bullet and buy the vinyl, album unheard? I'm not expecting to like it as much as the last one, just so long as I like it more than High Violet

Yeah, HV is the only of their records I (almost) never listen to

this is probably my least fave since the early records tbh

TWFM only really opened up for me after ~20 listens so I'm patient

Had no idea he apparently writes his lyrics with his wife.

TWFM was a realllly slow grower, yeah. I liked that album's length, since on most early listens I didn't make it deep into the album's second half, where a lot of the really great stuff is. Little surprises to find later.

This one feels backloaded to me atm

dark side of the gym is a good song title

I thought we were going to get something pretty interesting with record given that "The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness" was the lead off track but man this thing is dull which is saying something given we're talking about the band who's brand is all about being sad about being normal.

"sad about being normal" -- otm

I can't tell if this is dull-good or dull-boring. Maybe more the latter.

this band does some of their best work when they're being boring imo; trying to be interesting is how you end up with a High Violet

Do people not like High Violet? it has some of their best songs on it!

It's the only one I have trouble getting into, though I have to concede I am trouble building up much interest in this one.

The first track on High Violet is mixed absolutely fucking horribly and gives me an instant headache. I don't know what they did but it's fucking horrible.

England, Vanderlyle, the one about bees, though - they're right up there as my favourite National tracks.

Mouthy have you heard the "alternate mix" of Terrible Love? IIRC that was the version they were gonna use till they decided they preferred the more raw recording.

I haven't but I'm aware of it; keep meaning to.

That Trump toilet song ("Turtleneck") embarrassed me. If this is evolution, give me more dirges.

thank you. it sucks

"guilty party" and "i'll still destroy you" are the mvps here

yeah, those and "dark side..."

the electronic flourishes don't feel very well-integrated to me

The System Dreams in Total Darkness is one of the best things they've done and it made me hopeful the album might be a bit better than usual

v happy to see hate for the "terrible love" mix. that is the worst recording of music that exists.

yeah and the fact that it fucks up such a great song too... dunno how anybody involved can feel good about that

my god i am listening to the alternate version for the first time, and i am so happy that i can listen to this song now

so i guess that confirms it's not the worst recording but the worst mix

sheesh such delicate ears around here

still can't believe laura palmer whispered the album mix of 'terrible love' into his ear

“Goodbyes always take us half an hour,” complains the narrator of Nobody Else Will Be There on leaving a party. “Can’t we just go home?”

narrator otm

If Conversation 16 wasn't on HV I would easily think of that as the best National record.

that's one of their best songs wtf!

those lyrics.

most hilarious chorus definitely.

it's like a Berninger caricature of his lyrics, which I suppose may be some sort of meta joke that I missed.

Its a bit National-by-numbers but I really like Carin At The Liquor Store off the new one too

(Xpost) I'd drop both Conversation 16 and the awful Lemonworld and then I think HV is up there with Boxer.

Lemonworld is probably my favorite national song lol

is there anything as good as "Pink Rabbits" on this one?

no

ok thanks, i'll check out the tracks y'all like. "Dark Side of the Gym" is a dope song title

why does everyone like that song title?

sounds cool. evocative. slightly absurd

it seems like a very bad song title to me. I'd feel v stupid saying something like, "hey, please play that hit The National song 'Dark Side of the Gym' for me next, my man" to the rock 'n' bowl dj

Haha Sufjan that was funny

I think "enigmas" in art aren't so much of a deal-breaker so much as it felt, to me, last night, that this wasn't about "enigma" so much as it was about, well, featurelessness, meaninglessness, non-statements occupying space and sound in the place of a statement. I guess I started to kind of spin it around mentally a little bit, thinking that this kind of "non-statement" itself was comforting to attendees, that it didn't require thought or processing, it didn't intrude upon the identity of the audience. It created a listening environment that was strictly about the spectacle of a large number of highly competent musicians and money spent on production. In fact I feel much more "this way" toward Michael Stipe as a lyricist/singer than I do Matt Berninger, that the singer's presence and thesis is not about "enigma" so much as it is about a kind of paucity of intention. And I wondered why people would be attracted to this, because I myself am not, not really, at least, not right now and not last night.

It wasn't a date just fyi, my friend just happened to be the one who wanted to come with me to the show, and we noted without prejudice the striking homogeneity of the crowd.

Heads up, not unique to the National.

Oh, for sure. Part of me was wondering if whatever mechanism it is that attracts a certain subset of listeners to this musical experience might be termed as a kind of "classicism", that is, the same attraction that somebody might have toward abstract painting and/or symphony concerts

There are many different ways of approaching abstract painting and concerts of orchestral music, and not all of them involve a yearning for classicism. That said, if 'classicism' is shorthand for 'resting on one's laurels', I do agree that The National's music has tended towards self-canonization in recent years, which is why I'm indifferent to most of their output post-Boxer.

I tried to command-f the word "featureless" and my computer exploded.

Anyway, I have also felt that their compositions had kind of... lost some texture or dynamics on most of the albums I've heard following Boxer. For instance, as a guitar player that focuses on it I noticed that there was more finger picking among tracks on Alligator and by High Violet there was more soft strumming of basic chords. That's a specific example, but the sonic textures overall seemed less distinct and the newer songs themselves are harder to differentiate for me. I haven't really listened to the most recent album, though!

it didn't require thought or processing

this is not true in my experience of listening to the national. "sea of love" is a weird, lopsided-sounding song, i enjoy thinking about how it works

this thread got weird imo

like their thing may or may not be your thing but to suggest that bc it's not your thing it's also uninteresting musically in some sort of absolute way... i mean jam bands bore me to tears but i don't feel a need to make that their fault.

You've never seen someone present personal musical preferences as objective truth before?

fwfw Some piece I read said that starting with the last couple albums the band no longer records together in a dedicated home studio. They're too far flung around the world so contribute kind of digital-era piecemeal. Also fwiw, they all live in super-hip/cool places except the MVP drummer, who still lives in Cincinnati, so that's pretty cool. Might explain a sonic shift, whatever the intent.

i mean they write songs piecemeal but i'm pretty sure they still record together

the whole narrative around the last album that they all went to one of the guys' home recording studio and lived there for weeks and spent time together and played in the pool with their kids, etc., etc.

I haven't seen the National in several years but last time I saw them they were anything but featureless. drummer's incredible, the twins are inventive guitar players, together they create a lot of dynamic and interesting and moving music, and Berninger's intensity/shtick/whatever, for me, is compelling. all imo, of course.

have the records become kind of featureless? that i could buy.

also, i agree with this:

I've definitely become highly attuned to just how pro every band seems to be these days

also if it was important to me to know what Michael Stipe is talking about in Harborcoat i wouldn't like any pop or rock music, who gives a shit it sounds good

I have to use the word "featureless" because it's the only word that applies! Boring sounds pejorative (and it isn't, boring music can be great etc. etc.), low-content can be great too (and this isn't low-content, it's more like... well, yeah.)

And they are absolutely the finest imaginable musicians, the drummer is truly incredible.

i mean jam bands bore me to tears but i don't feel a need to make that their fault.

I'm not making anything anybody's fault, sheesh, it's the worst thing in the world that we can't speak critically about "the work" and "the listening process" without it turning into a discussion about blame. There's a lot a lot of music out there I have no interest in, but I understand the synapse between what it is and why people listen to it. I am having trouble parsing that out with The National. I don't even consider myself a non-fan really, I have affection for stuff they've done, I'm just trying to puzzle things out is all, and why I felt so alienated last night.

I must have misunderstood elements of this piece:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/aug/27/the-national-sleep-well-beast-interview

Wherein it says they all live in different places now:

The list of places where the members of the National now reside reads like the locations for a fashionable chain restaurant: Copenhagen (Aaron), Paris (Bryce), Los Angeles (Matt), Long Island (Scott) and Cincinnati (Bryan). This is a marked change from previous records. Until 2015, Aaron owned a house in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn and rented out the upstairs duplex to Berninger; Bryce had an apartment on the same street; the Devendorfs lived not far away. When the band wanted to record an album, they just walked a few steps to the garage in Aaron’s garden.

And then there was this, which I think is what I misread:

There have been sticky times for the National, even moments where the band feared it might implode. Before beginning Sleep Well Beast, Bryce Dessner was explicit that he wanted some elements to change. “There was a transition in technology, which happened around Boxer, when we all suddenly had Pro Tools at home and we started working separately,” he says. “It wasn’t joyless, but it started to become a more methodical thing. There were hard times for sure. Going into this process, I know I wanted it to feel different. So we set in motion a few things, and I feel like it opened a different world for us.”

I must have missed that for a time they *were* working more separately but now work together again? Anyway, some good confessions from Matt:

For a man with a reputation for being morose, Berninger is self-aware, even self-deprecating. “To be perfectly honest, the songs are already 75% what they are before I do anything to them,” he continues. “Aaron writes most of the music and there’s a lot of sadness and desperation and melancholy in so much of what he sends me, and I’m following his lead most of the time. So I don’t take full responsibility for our band being so miserablist and dark. It’s his frickin’ minor chords!”

Berninger freely admits he had “a chip” on his shoulder from watching other people make it. He missed the Cincinnati heyday, and then he moved to New York and had to watch the Strokes, Interpol and Yeah Yeah Yeahs blow up. “I was always on the outside of a scene looking in,” he says. “Then the Brooklyn thing started and I felt like we were, like, part of that: the Brooklyn scene. You had TV on the Radio, Grizzly Bear, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. That was finally where we were, like, ‘OK, this is the wave I guess we’ll catch.’ Because we missed the other ones!”

But while many of those bands have burned bright and fizzled, the National endure. Part of this is a focused, very conscious determination. About a decade ago, when Boxer came out, Berninger decided to wear collared shirts, suits and smart boots on stage. “I realised I wanted to do this for a long time,” he says. “So I started dressing like an old man, and that means when I do become an old man, people will say, ‘Oh, you haven’t aged at all!’ I remember there was this old photo where I wore a very low V-neck T-shirt, standing in a field of wheat. It was really bad. I thought it was going to be sexy, but I can’t sell that."

i have spoken with him once, don't claim to know him, but he seems like a funny, nice, regular dude. he's definitely more imposter syndrome than tortured genius or whatever.

what, though, is "the Cincinnati heyday"? I don't remember a Cincinnati heyday.

Afghan Whigs?

Ass Ponys?

Yeah ... I guess so. Kinda forgot about that little bubble.